Deep beneath the palace at Potsdam—in the secret chamber that had become more of a war room than a laboratory—Karl stood on top of the table.
Quite literally.
He paced back and forth across its surface with his hands clasped behind his back, boots thudding softly against reinforced wood as if it were a parade ground instead of a map table. Beneath his feet lay Thrace, rendered in ink and pins and carved relief: rivers cut like veins through the terrain, roads traced in thin, deliberate lines, villages reduced to careful marks. The new border after the First Balkan War slashed across the whole thing like a fresh scar—one ugly stroke dividing Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire.
Three thick lines pushed southward across that scar.
North.
Center.
South.
Three roads of attack.
Oskar stood opposite him—two meters of stillness and contained force—studying the board with the expression of a man who already saw ten moves ahead and hated every single one of them. When he moved pieces, he did it with precise, almost gentle fingers, the way a surgeon touches what he must not damage. First came the cavalry markers—slim horse-shaped tokens probing forward like feelers. Behind them followed the infantry blocks, dense columns advancing with slow inevitability.
And beside that mass… Oskar's own forces looked pitiful.
Three companies. Split into many small markers to represent the squads—Moss Men scattered like seeds, spread thin behind nearly twenty-five kilometers of front.
Tanya stood a step back from both men, petite and luminous in the lamplight, long blonde hair loose over her shoulders, a fiery red dress flowing around her legs. Her hands rested folded over her belly, the curve of pregnancy unmistakable. She said nothing. She wasn't even sure why she was here—only that Oskar had wanted her close. Her eyes followed every piece lifted, every marker removed, every decision that turned into fate.
Karl dropped to one knee on the table with theatrical confidence and leaned in, pushing the Ottoman cavalry scouts forward in a neat, eager line.
"And here they come," he said lightly, as if narrating a play. "As always. Scouts first. Proud. Confident. Blind."
Oskar nodded once and reached out.
At two marked locations—Ambush Point One and Ambush Point Two—he calmly plucked several of the forward cavalry pieces from the board and set them aside like crumbs.
"Here," Oskar said evenly. "And here. They enter the forests. The fields. They spread out. They look. And one by one, the Moss Men erase them."
Karl's grin widened, delighted by the simplicity of it. "Just as we planned."
"Silently," Oskar continued, voice steady. "As many as possible. Knives. Garrotes. Traps. No gunfire unless necessary." His gaze didn't leave the map. Then—barely—his expression tightened. "But I don't expect perfection."
A pause.
"There will be contact," he said, quieter now. "There will be skirmishes. And—" He exhaled through his nose, controlled, unwilling to give the fear a name. "—there may be losses."
Tanya's brow creased at that, faint but real.
Karl straightened and wagged a finger at Oskar like a teacher correcting a stubborn student.
"Ah. No. I don't think so."
Oskar's eyes lifted to him. "You don't?"
Karl dropped back onto his knees, leaned close to the board, and casually plucked away all the scout pieces he himself had just advanced—as if removing doubt with his fingertips.
"Casualties," Karl said calmly, "if any, will be in the single digits."
Oskar frowned. "You're optimistic."
"No," Karl replied at once. "I'm realistic—for this era. Come on, Oskar. We already talked about this."
Oskar folded his arms, the motion making the air around him feel smaller. "I know. But still. The Ottomans aren't stupid. And while they're poorly equipped, they still have rifles capable of killing even an armored man if hit in the right place."
Karl sighed as if offended that he had to explain the obvious again, then glanced down at the map like it was a child's drawing.
"Oskar," he said, and there was something almost fond in it, "the things you've built down here—your experiments, your methods… your toys you haven't even shown the regular army yet—people like me have never seen anything like them. Ever. Not even imagined them."
He looked up, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth.
"You forget—I didn't believe you at first. When you fell down those stairs. When you woke up… wrong. Drawing strange pictures into your diary. Speaking Chinese like it was nothing. Writing it too. Calling everyone—even the maids—my man." Karl shook his head, half amused, half reverent. "And then calling the naval academy garbage."
Tanya's mouth curved faintly at the memory, as if she could still hear it.
"I thought you'd lost your mind," Karl finished. "I truly did."
Then his expression hardened into certainty again.
"But years have a way of clarifying things," he went on. "And now? Now it's obvious. Part of you is from the future. Your mind—your knowledge—something."
He gestured down at the board, at the thick Ottoman blocks, at the confident arrows.
"And the men on the other side of this border?" Karl said. "They are not."
He tapped one of the Ottoman positions with two fingers.
"You talk about camouflage suits—ghillie suits. You worry they'll be spotted." He snorted softly. "Oskar, how does a man look for something he has never seen? How does he recognize a soldier who doesn't look like a soldier?"
Karl leaned closer, voice dropping into the intimate tone of someone describing a magic trick.
"A normal man, seeing one of your Moss Men for the first time, wouldn't think man at all. He'd think bush. Shadow. Something unnatural." His eyes flicked up. "And by the time the thought finishes forming—he's dead."
He pushed the Ottoman infantry columns forward now—dense blocks of wood and ink grinding toward Ambush Point Three, the mass of them sliding across the map like a stone dragged toward a milestone.
"And these," Karl said, gesturing at the narrow, marked corridors cutting into the roads. "Your wire traps. Spike pits. Log drops. Buried charges along the roadside—what you call improvised explosive devices." He shook his head slowly, something like admiration creeping into his voice. "I've read military history, Oskar. I know the tricks—mines, abatis, ambushes, scorched earth. None of this is entirely new."
He looked up, meeting Oskar's eyes.
"But this?" Karl continued, tapping the converging lines. "This combination—the timing, the layering, the way you force a column to compress before you strike it from every side—no one has ever done it like this. Not Napoleon. Not the Chinese generals. Not the Americans in their civil war. They used pieces of it. Never all of it. Never with this… precision."
His gaze dropped back to the board, to the red pins marking kill zones and the thin green lines that represented men who were barely there at all.
"You aren't fighting the Ottomans," Karl said quietly. "You're fighting their assumptions. Their habits. Their idea of what war is supposed to look like."
He exhaled, almost a laugh.
"And the worst part for them?" He spread his hands slightly. "They won't even understand what's killing them until it's already behind them."
He looked back up at Oskar, eyes bright.
"They'll face the Moss Men blind. No real reference. No understanding. No way to adapt fast enough." Karl spread his hands as if the conclusion were obvious. "That's why I'm optimistic."
Tanya nodded, her voice gentle but sure. "You should trust yourself more, Oskar," she said softly. "Your equipment alone—those helmets, the bulletproof vests with the steel plates—people will survive things they shouldn't because of them."
Oskar gave a small nod—reluctant, incomplete.
"Perhaps," he said. "Still… I don't trust plans that depend on perfection. Men make mistakes. Chance intervenes."
His eyes drifted to the last cluster of pieces—the artillery markers. The kill zone. The part of the plan that showed no mercy and offered no second chances.
"It's the next phase that troubles me most."
He looked back at Karl.
"What happens when they reach Ambush Point Three?" he asked. "When the Moss Men don't vanish. When they hold."
A brief pause.
"I know the theory," he went on, quieter now. "Fighting retreat. Bleed them all the way back to Adrianople." His jaw tightened. "But wars rarely follow theory."
His gaze locked onto Karl.
"So tell me—honestly. As a man of this era."
"What happens next?"
Karl didn't answer at once.
He dropped into a crouch on the table again, peering down at Thrace as if it were a puzzle board. His fingers nudged the Ottoman markers forward—north road, center road, south road—three neat, confident lines sliding toward the places Oskar had pinned in red.
Three ambush points. One in the north. One in the center. One in the south near the water.
Then Karl began removing pieces.
Not all of them—just the front of the advancing infantry blocks, and every remaining scout unit ahead of the column. He plucked them off with the casualness of a boy clearing tin soldiers from a board game, the way children played at war without ever smelling what it cost.
"Alright," Karl said at last, voice calm, almost academic. "If you're asking me what the Ottomans will do specifically… I can't be certain."
He glanced up at Oskar, then back down at the map.
"But if you're asking what they should do—what makes sense—then this is how I see it."
He tapped the lead scouts with one finger.
"First—the scouts are annihilated utterly. Every last one. Which means the Ottomans lose their eyes."
He swept his hand along the road ahead of the column.
"No information. No sense of what they're facing, where the enemy is, how many there are, what weapons are being used. Just… silence."
Karl pushed the main battalions forward anyway.
"And the battalions behind them won't fully understand what that silence means. They'll feel something is wrong, yes—unease, superstition, angry whispers—but not enough to stop the march. Not at first."
He advanced all three road-columns simultaneously until their heads struck the ambush markers.
"Then they hit the main ambush points. All of them. More or less at the same time, just like we calculated." Karl's eyes glittered faintly, as if he admired the geometry of it. "And that's where their spear-tip gets chipped."
He removed another cluster of pieces—more than before—then paused as if checking himself.
"Not the whole army," Karl said quickly. "Not even close. If they commit two hundred thousand… or three…"
He looked at the long column stretching back across the board.
"Then thousands of casualties in a single day—scouts included—is devastating, yes. But it's still only… the tip. The first bite."
He tapped the map again, thoughtful.
"But the Ottomans can take that hit. They have outside money propping them up—British, French… and if reports are right, even American influence creeping in. Economically they can stay afloat for now. And they still have a huge population—twenty million people. That's a manpower pool of a million able bodies if they squeeze it hard enough. And they'll use others—Christians and noncombatants—for transport and supply, wagons and labor, to keep the columns moving."
Karl spread the surviving Ottoman pieces into a messier cluster, breaking their perfect lines.
"So. They get struck hard in the first hours. They'll probably try a few assaults to feel out the enemy's line—your Moss Men line. Probing attacks. Angry pushes. Enough to convince themselves it's real."
He nodded toward the artillery markers, and his tone sharpened.
"But when that doesn't work, I suspect the artillery comes up next—along with whatever heavy machine guns they have."
He pushed a few Ottoman artillery pieces forward behind the infantry blocks.
"They'll start bombarding everything they think is a position. Anything that looks like a ridge, a tree line, a suspected trench. They'll throw shells to buy certainty. And under the cover of bombardment and machine-gun fire, they'll try to advance all along the line."
Karl's finger traced a slow, grinding movement forward.
"Poorly equipped or not, that method works against armies that sit still. But your Moss Men won't. They won't hold the same ground long enough to be erased by random bombardment." His mouth twitched. "So the Ottomans will take casualties again—and be slowed to a crawl."
Karl removed a few more pieces, as if those attacks bled out against smoke and concealment.
"But once those assaults fail—and they will fail, because they can't see what they're fighting—they'll stop."
He sat back on his heels.
"They'll hold position. Dig in. Regroup. Argue. Analyse. Try to understand."
Tanya's brow tightened. Oskar remained still, listening without blinking.
Karl continued, warming to his own logic now.
"And here is where you buy days. Maybe more. Because once they accept they can't simply charge forward, they'll do what any rational army would do."
Karl slid a few small Ottoman tokens out from the main body, nudging them forward like cautious feelers.
"They'll spread out along the line," he said. "Small probing teams. Sometimes two men. Sometimes three. And yes—most of them will vanish."
He shrugged, almost casually.
"But not all. Some will come back. And even when they don't, the gunfire alone will tell the Ottomans enough."
He tapped the Moss Men markers, counting them one by one with his finger.
"They'll realize the truth—that they aren't facing an army. They won't know what our Moss Men are. They might think monsters. Ghosts. Something dragged up from the forest or the underworld." A faint smile touched his mouth. "But they'll understand the important part."
He spread his hands slightly.
"There aren't many of them."
Karl leaned closer to the board.
"And then the logic becomes unavoidable. Six hundred men—no matter how elite—cannot watch twenty-five kilometers of front at all times. Men need sleep. They need rest. They run out of ammunition. They make mistakes."
His voice grew firmer, more confident—because this was where numbers began to matter.
"So if I were the Ottomans—and I don't think they're idiots—I would stop trying to smash the line head-on." He tapped the map. "I would wait. I would watch. And when gaps appear—and they will—I would push men into those gaps."
Karl picked up the Ottoman cavalry markers and shifted them decisively.
"Fast-moving cavalry. Once they slip around the Moss Men, the choice becomes simple: retreat or be cut off."
He nodded to himself.
"And I believe the Moss Men will retreat. Easily. Cleanly. That's what they're built to do."
Karl began moving the Ottoman infantry forward again—no longer in dense blocks, but spread wide, thinning the mass, turning it into a slow, grinding wave pressing toward Adrianople.
"And so the war changes," he said. "The Ottomans bombard everything—fortified positions, hills, towns, cities—anything that looks like it might hide your men. They advance steadily. Not fast. Not reckless. Just… forward."
He let the pieces creep closer to Adrianople.
"And when they reach the city, that is where the Moss Men make their stand."
Karl paused, then smiled slightly.
"And they won't be alone."
He reached for the white markers representing Bulgarian forces and pushed them forward.
"The city garrison. Local Bulgarians. Volunteers. All of them fighting together. The Ottomans will throw wave after wave at the walls—meat and blood crashing into stone like a tide—but by then it won't matter."
Karl's hands moved faster now, caught in the momentum of the idea.
"Because by that time, the Ottomans will have bled themselves dry of time."
He gestured broadly across the map.
"The Bulgarians will have finished making peace with the other Balkan powers. Serbia. Greece. Whoever's left standing." He nodded. "And then—whatever remains of their army, a hundred thousand men or more—comes north to help."
Karl pushed the Bulgarian markers toward Adrianople and beyond.
"They arrive just as the Ottomans are exhausted. Broken. And maybe they try one last stand—but more likely, they collapse."
He swept the Ottoman pieces backward in a broad motion.
"They'll pour back the way they came. Like a river reversing course. Toward Constantinople."
Karl leaned back on his heels, breath slightly quickened.
"The Bulgarians will pursue. And at the gates of Constantinople, another peace will be signed. By then Bulgaria stands as our ally—and the Ottomans?" He hesitated. "They likely fracture. Civil war. Or something close to it."
Karl exhaled slowly, the confidence bleeding out of his posture.
"That's how I see the battlefield," he said. Then, after a beat, more quietly, "But what happens after that… that's no longer in our hands."
His gaze lifted to Oskar now—steady, serious.
"What comes next depends on the Entente. And those sneaky Americans."
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table, a nervous habit he usually kept buried.
"Russia won't help the Ottomans," Karl said at once. "Not willingly. Not after everything that's happened. But Britain?" He shook his head. "Britain won't let them fall. Not completely. France won't either."
Oskar's brow furrowed slightly.
"Because of Bulgaria," Karl continued. "Because the moment they even suspect we're backing Bulgaria—truly backing them, not just quietly nudging things—Constantinople becomes the problem."
He gestured at the map, fingers circling the Bosporus like a warning drawn in the air.
"If the Ottomans collapse outright, a power vacuum opens. And Bulgaria will rush straight into it. Constantinople isn't just a city—it's the strait. The choke point. The symbol. Whoever holds it controls the gateway between seas."
Karl looked up again.
"And if Bulgaria takes Constantinople with German backing, Russia can't respond without risking war with us and Austria-Hungary. They don't even have a clean land route—Romania blocks them. And Romania?" He scoffed quietly. "Romania hates Russia almost as much as it hates Austria-Hungary. A wild card no one can rely on."
He spread his hands, frustration creeping in.
"So the Entente can't allow that outcome. It would secure the Balkans for us completely. They must keep the Ottomans alive—not because they love them, but because they need a counterweight. Serbia alone isn't enough. Greece wants neutrality. Albania and Macedonia are too weak. Romania is unreliable."
His voice hardened.
"The Ottomans are the only piece left on the board large enough to stop Bulgaria from becoming a German-aligned regional power. So the Entente will support them. Quietly, or openly, if needed. Even if Russia despises it."
Karl paused, clearly unsettled by his own conclusion.
"They'll sacrifice allies. Principles. Old friendships. Whatever it takes—as long as German influence stays boxed in."
Silence settled over the room.
Oskar remained still, absorbing it all. There was concern in his eyes—but also something else. A faint, dangerous amusement, like a man watching the world behave exactly as he expected. Without realizing it, Karl had just described not the wars of 1913, but the wars of a future yet to come—and Oskar knew whose influence had bent Karl's thinking there.
Then his gaze shifted.
"Tanya," he said calmly. "You've been quiet. What do you think?"
Tanya lifted her head, clearly surprised that he had asked her opinion on matters of war. But the surprise lasted only a heartbeat. Her expression tightened as she looked down at the map—not hesitant, not intimidated, but intent on correcting something that felt deeply wrong to her.
"Honestly?" she said. "I don't understand your battle strategy at all, Karl. It doesn't make sense."
Karl blinked, faintly offended. "What?"
She drew a slow breath, one hand resting over her belly, grounding herself.
"Yes, your Moss Men are extraordinary," she said. "Yes, the Ottomans will take terrible losses. Tens of thousands, perhaps." She met Karl's eyes directly. "I don't dispute that."
Karl opened his mouth—
"But why would they spread their army like a man throwing dice across a table, hoping one of them lands favorably?" Tanya continued, cutting gently but firmly through him.
She stepped closer to the table and began placing the pieces back into their original formations.
"You're assuming they'll fight this like gamblers—scattering units here and there, probing wide fronts, bombarding blindly." She shook her head. "Why would they do that?"
Karl frowned. "Because—"
"Because you would," Tanya said, a hint of dry amusement touching her voice. "You're thinking like a businessman."
She crossed her arms beneath her full chest, eyes sharp now.
"No. They aren't like you, Karl. They're generals. Men who don't spend their days counting coins or lifting weights in a gym. They're men who read history."
A faint, smug smile appeared.
"Men who read Napoleon."
"In fact," Tanya said quietly, "like the dutiful wife I am, when Oskar began planning this campaign, I tried to understand it the only way I know how."
She rested a hand over her belly, then lifted her eyes to the map.
"I began reading about Napoleon's campaigns. Russia. Italy. Germany." She shook her head faintly. "He didn't fight on twenty-five kilometers of front. No one did."
She stepped closer, voice calm, almost reassuring.
"Armies don't dissolve themselves across the countryside. They concentrate—on roads where supplies can move, where communication can be maintained, where timing can be synchronized. Napoleon did divide his forces to march along different routes, yes—but when battle came, they merged. They became one body."
Her finger tapped Adrianople.
"This."
Her confidence grew—not sharp, not aggressive, but steady, born of intuition and history rather than numbers.
"The Ottomans won't scatter men into suicidal little probing missions in every direction. Who would volunteer for that? And if you send two men here and there, who's to say they don't get lost—or simply go home?" She glanced at Karl. "There's a reason armies move in company-sized blocks. A block can be fed. A block can be watched. A block can be commanded."
She smiled faintly, almost apologetic.
"Just as a shop needs a manager to ensure the work is actually being done."
She gestured again at the board.
"Yes, there will be probing attacks—but they will be made by companies, not pairs of men. And they will be supported by artillery firing from positions close enough to see what they are shooting at."
Her hand moved toward the southern coast.
"And don't forget—they are not limited to land. They can cross water. They can land forces to the south and move inland toward Adrianople from more than one direction." Her eyes lifted. "But they will do it as armies, not as scattered raiders."
She paused, choosing her words carefully.
"And once the Moss Men begin retreating under pressure, the Ottomans will learn something very old and very human—that force works. They will push like a hammer striking a stubborn nail. The hammer may crack. It may chip. But they will keep striking because they believe they must."
Her voice softened.
"They are pressed for time. They believe this is their land. Their mission. And there is safety in numbers." She gave Karl a small, earnest look. "I know I wouldn't want to be sent alone into the wilderness to look for enemies."
Karl frowned, unconvinced.
"And your artillery theory," Tanya continued gently, "doesn't convince me either. Why would they fire blindly from kilometers away? Ammunition is finite. They know that." She shook her head. "Napoleon brought his guns forward—one or two kilometers. Direct fire. Line of sight. Adjusted by officers who could see the battlefield, not by messengers riding back and forth for hours."
She drew a breath.
"And as for the Entente—why would they help the Ottomans?" Her brow creased. "They've already been accused of terrible atrocities in Libya. There are rumors—true or not—about what's happening in Constantinople, though access has been denied from foreigners so we cant confirm it."
Her eyes flicked briefly to Oskar.
"The international community is watching. And it is not pleased. Even the Pope has spoken—calling for peace, understanding, restraint." She spread her hands. "I don't see why any God-fearing Western power would rush to support a state whose moral and spiritual values so clearly clash with their own."
Her gaze softened—not weakly, but humanly.
"So I don't believe this war will unfold as simply—or as mechanically—as you suggest. I don't believe the battles will be so illogical." She looked down, touching her belly again. "I believe that when the worst of the fighting has passed, reason will return."
She lifted her eyes to Karl once more.
"Yes," she said quietly, and the word carried weight, "your men will kill many. Terribly many." She didn't flinch from it. "But I believe the war will stop before it devours everything. I believe voices calling for peace will be heard—priests, fathers, mothers, even kings—and that hatred…" Her throat tightened for a moment. "Hatred can be set aside, eventually. It has to be."
For a heartbeat, the room held still.
Oskar said nothing.
At first he had listened with something like pride when Tanya spoke of roads and supply and history. But as her voice turned toward mercy and peace, doubt crept in—quiet, unwelcome—like a shadow sliding under a door.
Karl broke the silence with a bark of laughter.
"Ridiculous," he said, shaking his head. "Absolutely ridiculous." He shrugged, as if dismissing a child's dream. "But I suppose that kind of softness—this emotional logic—is exactly what I should expect from a woman."
He glanced at Oskar, fishing for approval.
"Am I right, or am I right?"
Tanya took a half-step back, genuinely struck—as if he'd slapped her without lifting a hand.
Oskar almost smirked—almost—then caught himself, watching them turn on each other with the easy familiarity of people who had argued like this for years.
Old friends.
Used to spitting truths in each other's faces—
and never quite agreeing on which truths mattered most.
Then Karl straightened atop the table, irritation sharpening his voice into something ugly.
"Foolish woman," he snapped. "What would you know about matters of war? This is the realm of men. Of logic. Not of soft hearts and winter emotions."
The room went still enough to hear the lamps hum.
Tanya blinked once.
"Huh?"
Then her eyes hardened—ice snapping into place.
"How dare you."
Before anyone could breathe, she crossed the distance in two quick steps, grabbed Karl by the collar—
—and lifted him.
Karl's boots scraped off the table with a startled squeal, and with them went what little dignity he had left. His legs kicked uselessly in the air.
"What the—put me down!" he yelped.
Tanya's grip was iron. For someone so petite, there was nothing delicate about the strength in her arms—trained strength, the kind that came from years of discipline and violence carefully kept on a leash. She shook him once, hard, rattling teeth.
"You insult me?" she hissed. "You insult me? I am a princess. You do not speak to me like that."
Karl dangled, red-faced and sputtering. "Have you lost your mind?! Put me down this instant! I'm the world's richest dwarf—you can't treat me like this!"
Oskar stared, openly stunned.
"Tanya—Karl—wait—can't we just talk about this—!"
Karl twisted just enough to get an arm free and pinched her hard, sharp, vicious.
"Ow!" Tanya barked, pure surprise—an instant crack in her fury.
Her grip loosened.
Karl dropped back onto the table with a thud and scrambled upright like a cat thrown off a shelf.
"You—" Tanya snapped, eyes blazing again. "You pinched me?!"
Karl's face went mottled with rage. He stabbed a finger into her chest, the gesture absurd and insulting all at once—his finger sinking into soft fullness like it was making some grand point.
"You cow," he spat. "How dare you lift me like that! I'm not your damn doll! I'm not—"
She slapped his hand away.
"Oh please," she shot back. "You'd be much cuter if you were a doll."
Karl froze, insult lagging behind his own temper.
"Wait—was that an insult?"
"Yes."
"I am not a doll," he snapped. "I'm a man!"
"That's debatable."
"Enough."
Oskar stepped between them at last, catching Tanya's arm. "Calm down."
She spun on him so fast it was instinct—pure reflex—hand flashing up.
"Don't touch me!"
Oskar caught her wrist mid-swing, eyes wide.
"What is wrong with you, woman?"
Tanya froze.
For a second her face emptied, as if the rage had drained out through a hole in her chest. Then realization hit—cold, sudden.
"I—" Her voice faltered. "Oskar… I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me." Her gaze knifed past him at Karl. "But he pinched me. He insulted me."
Oskar dragged a hand down his face.
"Oh gods…" he exhaled, already exhausted. "Alright. Clearly your pregnancy is calling for one of its famous mood swings. Let's just—"
"What?" Tanya snapped, rage flaring back so fast it was almost comical. "So now you're blaming me?"
"No—no, that's not what I said."
"You always do this!" Her voice shook now, anger trembling on the edge of hurt. "You don't respect me. You don't respect my ideas. You never do!"
"Tanya—"
"You bastard. You womanizer."
"What? No! Where did that even—?"
Karl muttered, just loud enough to be heard, "Well. That escalated."
Oskar's head snapped toward him with a look that could have killed.
Then he inhaled, forced both hands up, palms out.
"Alright. Enough. We're done here." He tried for calm, for diplomatic—his "statesman" mask. "Dinner is waiting. Let's go eat."
"No," Tanya said sharply. "Don't touch me. I don't want to see you. Not today."
Oskar pinched the bridge of his nose. "Enough war plans for you, woman—"
And before she could launch again, he simply scooped her up into his arms.
"Hey—!" she protested, kicking and squirming. "Put me down!"
She slapped at his shoulder—furious, embarrassed, indignant—but it was like striking a statue. Oskar didn't even grunt. He just turned toward the heavy metal doors with her thrashing against him like a storm in his arms.
"Alright, alright," he said, maddeningly calm. "We'll eat. Everything will be fine."
"Let me go!"
He didn't.
The doors hissed open. Footsteps echoed up the stairs. Her voice carried into the corridor—still fuming, still protesting—until distance swallowed it.
Then the doors hissed shut again.
Silence settled back into the war room like a lid.
Karl stood alone on the table, smoothing his collar as if this were a normal day—because, in a way, it was. He was Oskar's friend, Oskar's constant, and, more often than he liked to admit, the unwilling therapist and referee for Oskar's women.
Still—humiliation clung to him. Being lifted, shaken, and handled like a misbehaving child by a princess was not his idea of dignity. And yet he forced himself, by sheer stubborn pride, to behave as though nothing had happened.
He exhaled through his nose, rubbed a hand down his face.
"Unbelievable…" he muttered.
Then he crouched again on the tabletop, as if returning to the map could restore order to the universe.
His gaze slid across Thrace. The pins. The arrows. The three thrusts carved into paper like wounds that hadn't started bleeding yet.
Quietly—almost absently—Karl nudged a few artillery markers forward.
"Hm," he murmured, more to himself than to the empty chamber. "I do wonder…"
His fingers traced the lines toward the border, toward the red-labeled kill zones Oskar had marked with clinical care.
"…how they're doing out there."
Karl wasn't a military genius. He knew that. He was a businessman who liked the clean certainty of balance sheets. War was mud and noise and irrationality—ugly men doing ugly things in ugly places, and then calling it history.
He glanced around the underground chamber. Maps covered the walls. Plans were pinned up like insects. Strings linked towns to ridgelines, river crossings to supply depots, timings to distances—annotations in Oskar's tight hand, neat and merciless: dates, kilometers, expected rates of march.
One wall held the broad overview.
Three great roads pushing from Constantinople toward Adrianople.
And then—like a dagger aimed at a throat—a fourth line drawn across the Dardanelles at its narrowest point.
Karl's eyes lingered there.
On the Dardanelles route, Oskar hadn't bothered with arrows. No fallback lines. No layered positions. No neat doctrine.
Just a single symbol, inked with finality.
A skull.
On the three roads to Adrianople there were skulls too—many of them—stacked along the advance like milestones.
Not "possible casualties."
Not "risk."
Skulls.
Death. Annihilation. Certainty.
Karl swallowed. The anger in him thinned into something colder.
And, in that quiet, he finally understood what had been sitting beneath Oskar's calm all along.
Not confidence.
Knowledge.
Oskar hadn't been guessing.
He'd been calculating.
Karl let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. In the emptiness of the war room it sounded too loud—an intrusion, like coughing in a church.
He looked back down at the map—at the neat little pieces, the clean lines, the toy logic of war—and for the first time it didn't feel like a game at all.
It felt like a funeral being planned in advance.
He stared at the skulls again and felt a prickling at the base of his neck, the uneasy sense that he was standing beside a man who could see tomorrow too clearly—and was pretending not to.
Karl sighed, forced his hands steady, and climbed down from the table.
Dinner, he decided.
Food. Warm light. The illusion that the world was still normal enough for knives and plates and conversation.
Because neither he nor Tanya truly knew what would happen next.
And Oskar—though he would never say it aloud—had a pretty good idea.
That was why his eyes had looked the way they did.
Not fear.
Not excitement.
Something worse.
Something like a man refusing to stare directly at the shape of tomorrow—because he still wanted to sleep tonight without dreaming of the screaming that was coming.